Troubleshooting Cardinal Station Access Issues

Use a supported web browser

Cardinal Station is an Oracle PeopleSoft application. Oracle supports only very specific web browsers and browser versions for their applications.

We strongly recommend using Internet Explorer 8 on Windows, or Safari 4 or 5 on Mac OS X. Firefox 3 will also work.

The steps below refer to Internet Explorer (IE) on Windows XP. However, you can perform the same actions other browsers; refer to help commands on those systems for the specific tasks.

Clear the web browser cache

As your use your browser to access web pages on the Internet or on the CUA network, the browser maintains a cache of temporary files on your local hard drive. Clearing this cache often resolves problems encountered displaying pages in Cardinal Station (or on other web sites).

To clear the browser cache in Internet Explorer,

Click the Tools button and then select Delete Browsing History.

Click "Delete files..." and then click Yes.

Click "Delete cookies..." and then click Yes.

Click Close.

Close and restart Internet Explorer.

Make sure web browser cookies are enabled for cardinalstation.cua.edu

A "cookie" is a short string of text exchanged between a web server and the web browser running on your local computer. Common uses for cookies are to authenticate, track or otherwise maintain information about the site or user. Cardinal Station requires that cookies be enabled in your browser.

CPIT recommends that you set your Internet Explorer privacy setting to at least "Medium High". At that setting, cookies are enabled for originating sites only, which is sufficient for Cardinal Station. To do this,

Click the Tools button in Internet Explorer

On the Privacy tab, move the slider bar to "Medium High" and click OK.

If you use a privacy setting greater than "Medium High," you must click the Sites button and add "cardinalstation.cua.edu" as an Allowed site.

Clear the Windows DNS cache

As you navigate the Internet, Windows remembers the names and addresses of the sites that you visit in its DNS cache. Sometimes problems accessing Cardinal Station can be fixed by clearing the DNS cache.

To clear the DNS cache on Windows XP,

Click the Start button on the Windows task bar, and the select Run.

In the Open box, type ipconfig /flushdns and click OK.
Be sure to enter the space between the two words in the command; if you do not, Windows will complain that it cannot find the command. Also be sure to type the forward slash as appears above and not the back slash.

A Command Prompt window briefly appears and then closes as the cache is cleared (flushed).

Set display screen resolution to at least 1024x768

The web page panels within Cardinal Station and Cardinal Financials are optimized for display on a monitor that is set to a resolution of at least 1024x768 pixels. This is the default screen resolution for faculty and staff computers on the campus network.

If you use a lower resolution such as 800x600, you will find that the horizontal scroll bar will appear on many pages within PeopleSoft. You will also have to use the vertical scroll bar more frequently than if you were using a higher resolution.

To set your display screen resolution to 1024x768 on Windows XP,

Click the Start button, and select Control Panel, Appearance and Themes, Display.

Select the Settings tab.

Move the Screen resolution slider bar to the "1024 by 768 pixels" setting.

Click OK.

If Windows asks whether to use this setting, select Yes.

Make sure the system time is correct

An incorrect date/time setting on your local computer can result in logon timeouts and other Cardinal Station errors. Faculty and staff computers on the CUA network are configured with the correct timezone for the campus network and are set to synchronize the time automatically, so the Internet Time tab is not present. If you administer your own personally-owned computer, however, you may need to adjust the timezone and date and time.

To modify Date and Time settings on Windows XP,

Double-click the clock in the system tray to open it, or use Start, Control Panel, Date and Time.

On the Date & Time tab, make sure that the correct date is selected.

On the Time Zone tab, select the correct timezone, "(GMT -05:00) Eastern Time (US & Canada)" if you are in the Eastern Time zone of the United States.

On the Internet Time tab, click Update Now. Wait for the time to synchronize.

Make sure that the "Automatically synchronize with an Internet time server" is checked, and click OK.

Other steps that may be useful

Cardinal Station logon page reappears after signing on

Description: You have entered your Cardinal Station logon name and password, and clicked the Sign On button to log onto Cardinal Station. Instead, the logon page reappears.

Steps to take: This problem occurs when your Cardinal Station logon name or password was entered incorrectly. Rather than display an error message, Cardinal Station simply prompts you to reenter your credentials by redisplaying the logon page. Follow these steps to resolve this problem.

Make sure you are entering your Cardinal Station logon name (User ID) in uppercase. The best way to do this is to use the Caps Lock key. Cardinal Station logon names are always uppercase.

Cardinal Station passwords also are case-sensitive; be sure you are typing your Cardinal Station password in the exact case in which you specified it originally. You may need to release the Caps Lock key if your password is lowercase or mixed-case.

If you are a student and would like to have your Cardinal Station password reset, click the "Forgot your password?" link on the Cardinal Station logon page. Enter your Cardinal Station logon name or your student ID and click Continue. A temporary password is mailed to your cua.edu e-mail address. You must know your CUA network logon name and password in order to retrieve the new Cardinal Station password from your CUA e-mail inbox.

Session Expires when attempting to log onto Cardinal Station

Description: You click in the User ID box on the Cardinal Station logon page in order to log on, but you immediately receive a "Session expired" error. This happens each time you click in the User ID box.

Steps to take: This problem is infrequent, but when it happens you can get logged on by following these steps.

Click on the "Return to Cardinal Station" link on the session expired error page to return to the Cardinal Station logon page. Do not use the mouse at all for the remaining steps.

Press the Tab key on the keyboard until the cursor is within the User ID box.

Type your Cardinal Station logon name and press Tab to move the cursor to the Password box.

Type your Cardinal Station password and press Tab to move to the Sign On button.

Press Enter to log onto Cardinal Station.

Once you are logged onto Cardinal Station, you should again be able to use your mouse as usual.